Dishonored 2 Designers Break Down the Clockwork Mansion | On the Level

Between a masquerade ball, a brilliant bank
heist, and a house trapped between two moments

in time - the Dishonored series is famous
for its intricate and imaginative level design.

But if there's one stage that truly fits that
description, it's the Clockwork Mansion from

Dishonored 2 - a shape-shifting stately home
where walls rotate on carousels, entire rooms

disappear into the floor, and furniture gets
rearranged by hidden mechanisms.

It's the home of one Kirin Jindosh - an eccentric
inventor who is building an army of robotic

soldiers, and has also imprisoned your pal
Sokolov in his basement.

So you'll need to get in, take control of
the mansion, stop Jindosh from making any

more robots, and bust Sokolov out.

So welcome to On the Level - a video series
in which I play excellent video game stages,

alongside the designers who made them.

For this episode, I played through the Clockwork
Mansion while talking to level designer Dana Nightingale.

She was responsible for planning out the mansion's
layout and its gameplay beats, using flowcharts

and prototypes.

Also on the call was David Di Giacomo, the
level's artist.

His job was to actually build the mansion,
come up with the mechanisms and movements,

and turn Dana's ideas into reality.

A quick note that in this video, David's answers
will be in French, with English subtitles.

So, before I open the door and enter the mansion,
I asked Dana how she first came to work on this level.

DANA: I had wrapped up my work on the Knife
of Dunwall and I was just shown a list - a

rather long list - of all of the potential
level ideas that the team was brainstorming

to include in Dishonored 2.

And one of them was the mansion of a clockwork
inventor.

Like, I skimmed the list, and I look at the
list thinking 'this is going to be super hard

to decide, how am I going to know which one
to pick?'.

And I see that one and I'm like 'yeah! That one!
That's the one i'm doing!'."

MARK: Do you remember any of the other ideas
on the list?

DANA: I only remember the others that I prototyped.

But I did do a prototype for a redux of the
masquerade ball concept, which we eventually

decided to not do.

We didn't want to try to out-Boyle Lady Boyle
immediately.

Though we are now revisiting it for Deathloop:
the party with all the wolf masks.

And another one that was actually supposed
to be part of the Clockwork Mansion

was the wind corridor.

You were supposed to have to travel through
that in order to get to Jindosh's mansion.

So first you go through these crazy factories
with all these mechanics built around the

wind being strong enough to actually pick
you up and blow you away.

But that really didn't make it very far.

The scope of the game was being nailed down
and we realised we had too much.

So we we had to, like, let go of a few of
the ideas and that was one of them.

MARK: So once you have that prompt what did
you do next?

DANA: So then I just started prototyping.

So no concept at all of what the layout would
be, what what the challenges would be.

The only thing we knew for sure was there
was going to be the inventor, Sokolov was

going to play a role, and there were these
clockwork soldiers.

Other than that it was just prototyping different
moving rooms, different layouts.

Oh, and a big emphasis from like day zero
on letting the player be inside the mechanisms.

It was always about this divide between the
space for normal people and the space where

the player could go in the guts of the building.

Which was very in line with the the design
philosophy from Dishonored where there was

always this threshold between where normal
people can go and where a supernatural assassin can go.

It was always kind of a sense of a behind
the scenes even from the earliest Dishonored map.

But now we could take it a step even further.

MARK, NARRATION: There were more concepts
and prototypes for the level,

but we'll come back to them later.

For now, I better start the stage itself.

*Creaky wooden door opens*

So the mansion begins in a small, innocuous
entryway.

And there's not much for me to do than to
pull on this strange lever…

MARK: So what did you want to achieve with
this first transformation?

DANA: This was just to make the player, like,
[—] themselves, basically.

Am I allowed to say that?

Should I do another take?

The point of this part was to just, you know,
wow the player.

MARK: David, what do you remember about actually
building this part of the map?

MARK: It's interesting that the level begins
in a neutral state.

What was the thought behind that?

DANA: The initial idea is the clockwork is
immediately hostile.

But that's such an overwhelming thing to do
to the player immediately.

So what I wanted to do to, like, let the player
focus on the drama of the moment and give

them a chance to look at the clockwork soldier
was to to start it off as non-hostile.

And of course the trouble was is that 80 percent
of the players would just hide already.

They would assume that it's hostile.

We actually decided to, like, let that work.
So if you do hide and the clockwork soldier

doesn't see you, Jindosh will start to say
like…

JINDOSH: Hello?
Anyone there?

Could there be some misfiring of the mechanism?

No one then.
Strange…

DANA: And then you can continue through the
map in that perfect stealth run.

You know, sometimes you have to see how players
are actually reacting and rather than just

fighting against it you, like, have to just
go with it and say 'well, this is their natural

reaction.

What do we give them to validate this reaction?'.

MARK: David, how did you go about building the atrium?

MARK: Now we get to meet Jindosh.
What can you tell me about this scene?

DANA: Well this scene where you're speaking
to him was something we wanted to do more

of after Dishonored 1, where the player would
sometimes just see the antagonist of the level

very briefly, or sometimes they would be dead
before you even realised that you had met them.

So we looked for many opportunities in Dishonored
2 to let the player meet the antagonists early,

in a context where you couldn't necessarily
engage with them.

So we could do more with presenting their
character.

JINDOSH: I'd assume my involvement with the
Duke brought you to my door.

Or maybe you're after washed up Anton Sokolov,
comfortably residing in the assessment chamber?

MARK: Jindosh also taunts you over the loudspeaker
throughout the level.

I'm sensing maybe like a SHODAN influence?

DANA: Oh one thousand percent.

That's just the way I talked about it the
entire time - it was Jindosh's SHODAN lines.

MARK: What can you tell me about designing
the clockwork soldiers?

DANA: The reason the whole level exists is
because we want non-human enemies so players

have more opportunity to use their tools without
having to worry about engaging with the chaos system.

So now you can let loose on these mechanical
creatures.

One of the things that was a result of seeing
how they actually worked in the map was the

decision to make there be two types, because
they were just such a difficult enemy there

was no difficulty gradient in the map.

Immediately you were super overwhelmed by
this insurmountable enemy who could see behind it,

it could attack in all directions.

I gave a ton of feedback to the teams in charge
of that to say I would really like something

a bit easier so I can create a few encounters
early on that are a bit less intimidating,

get the player used to fighting them.

So this one, for example, is the simpler version.

MARK: I like how these two characters give
you some clues about dealing with the clockwork

soldiers through their dialogue…

DANA: We have to consider that some players
are going to go very slowly and be very observant

and they're going to read every bit of information.

And we want them to feel like that caution
is rewarded.

GUARD: It'll wake up on its own if a fight
breaks out.

They're blind but they can still hear.

DANA: But the other player who just wants
to skip all that and dig right in and just

engage immediately… they're going to learn
by doing.

The clockwork soldiers' animations will give
them different cues and the audio cues from

the way it's behaving.

So both players wind up with the same information
but they both got it in a way that was more

in line with how they want to play.

MARK, NARRATION: After escaping from Jindosh's
trap, we find ourselves in the next part of

the mansion - the lavish and luxurious visitor's
area.

The main room is a giant space with a glass
floor, entertainment on demand, and two huge

waterfalls that drop into turbines and provide
power for the mansion.

So far we've been lead through the house by
Jindosh's directions and the game's waypoints

- but now the level opens up.

There's a way forward but it's blocked by
an electrifying arc pylon, and there are rooms

to explore on both the left and right.

So I asked Dana if this was supposed to be
the moment where the player was left to figure

things out for themselves.

DANA: Yes that's basically it.

This is really the moment where the level
now starts to open up and it's really driven

by your own curiosity and your own observation.

What you notice completely dictates
what your goals are now.

If you just see the elevator then now it's
a vignette about getting past the arc pylon.

But maybe you notice that one of the gratings…
there's a hole in that.

So maybe that's the thing you notice and now
your goal is 'I want to get through there'.

Or maybe you've already realised that those
windows are all openable and you can get behind

the scenes.

It's really just about what you've noticed
at this point and the only place where you're

fully blocked here is if you're just not taking
in anything.

So the game really forces you to look around
and notice all these different things.

MARK: There's these characters here: the buyers.

Why did you include them?

DANA: That was part of the the world building.

Jindosh is very showy and he's kind of a capitalist.

You know, he wants to sell his work, he's
in it for the money - which we eventually

got to revisit in Death of the Outsider where
we actually showed that someone had bought

some of the clockwork soldiers and you see
them in the bank.

So he has this very opulent place, he wants
people to come to him to be awed by his creations

and then buy them.

This is an example of two buyers.

You know, Jindosh like welcomed them in just
like he had welcomed you in.

They're escorted into this room.

But then Emily arrives and Jindosh just completely
forgets about them!

MARK: One of my favourite things about the
level is being able to slip through the walls

during a transformation.

DANA: Yeah, like… it was always imagined
that way because all the prototypes were built

around the idea that it's not only about the
two configurations - it's about all the possibilities

that happen during the transition.

That's why they all happen so slowly.

MARK, NARRATION: Beneath the lavish visitor's
area, deep within the mansion's underbelly,

is a more utilitarian zone.

Here you'll find a secret kitchen,

a pair of guards to scrap with, and the place
where Jindosh is keeping Sokolov.

But first, I wanted to ask about this familiar
looking head that's being used for target practice.

Was it a reference to the earlier version of
the clockwork soldiers, as seen in the game's

first trailers?

DANA: Yes. Actually, for a long time that's
how they looked in the game.

Feedback was that they weren't intimidating
enough.

But you get feedback from all sorts of sources
and when they start to line up you start to

see a trend - which is the clockwork soldiers
look goofy.

So you change it.

But thankfully we got a second chance with
those heads again in Death of the Outsider.

MARK: So tell me about the assessment chamber.

DANA: When we started I was doing all these
prototypes and what was to be the assessment

chamber was originally like half of the entire
map.

It was originally enormous.

And the original concept was that Jindosh
was not just testing their basic locomotion

and response to sight and sound, but he was
like trying to see if he had invented ethics.

So he would put the clockwork soldiers in
all these ethical situations where you have

an arbitrary goal, and the easy way to achieve
the goal involved somebody dying.

And of course the difficult solution would
allow you to spare them.

This was very on the nose for the game we
were making.

But you had to go through this whole very
long obstacle course to finally reach Sokolov.

And in the end we made the most conservative
version of this that still achieves the original

goal: which is that: where would Jindosh
put Sokolov in his house?

Because he doesn't have a jail cell.
So where would he go?

Well he puts him in the… we called it the
rat maze, the new version.

Like a little obstacle course for the the
clockwork soldier.

MARK: How else did the level change during
development?

DANA: This iteration of the design, the idea
was that the place was going to be just an

impossible maze.

There was no way that you could like navigate
it without help so there was going to be like

these panels that you could tell the house
where are you trying to go.

I'm glad we did not go in this direction.

I think what we went with for, like, letting
the player understand it… like this is a

space that I can have mastery of.

I'm using these transformations deliberately
to achieve a goal and it is kind of the opposite

of what that early attempt was, which was
just maze-like.

Achieving mastery there is not possible, because
the level's antagonistic towards you.

In the final version the level is part of
your toolset at one point.

MARK: Okay, I've got Sokolov.

Gonna have to carry him all the way back to
the entrance.

DANA: I really wanted there to be a way for
you to get Sokolov out without exiting yourself,

because I didn't think it was fun to have
to go all the way back out of the map carrying

him and keeping him alive.

So I created all of these different routes
and methods.

At one point I imagined there was a clockwork
soldier delivery mechanism and it was basically

like a pneumatic tube that Jindosh would load
the clockwork soldiers in and would shoot

them down this gigantic pipe into the city.

And you could put Sokolov into one of those
and just shoot him out.

But we had so many budget constraints on this
map and that was just way out of scope.

So in the end the solution was just to make
Sokolov really resistant to damage.

MARK: But it is nice that the level changes
after you grab Sokolov.

DANA: Yeah, like, there's two changes that
happen - if you do Sokolov first.

So the guards appear from the elevator, and
there's other clockwork soldiers that are

stowed away in the walls and those will have
emerged.

So we wanted the player's experience to be
a bit different if you did go after Sokolov

first because Jindosh is still alive and observing
and reacting.

And that's a bit of the SHODAN-ness coming
into play here.

MARK: Do you have, like, an intended order
for the level?

You know, Sokolov first or Jindosh first?

DANA: For 99.9… how many other nines you
need, the layout is designed so that what

you do first is purely based on what you want
to do first or just like where your curiosity

takes you.

For speedrunners: definitely Jindosh first,
Sokolov second.

That's that's the point zero zero zero one
percent.

That's just logical for speed running because
you need to take Sokolov to the exit therefore

you're going to do Sokolov last.

So there were a lot of decisions built around
'how are speedrunner is going to interact

with this map?'.

MARK, NARRATION: With Sokolov safe, it’s
time to face down Jindosh himself.

And so I made my way to his private chambers.

Here, you'll find two of the most complex
areas in the level: a rotating bedroom that

can be twisted into dozens of different combinations,
and a laboratory where different research

stations can be dragged up from a storage
area down below.

But… there are so many routes you
can take to get here, and that's because the

stage is so incredibly dense and interconnected.

I wanted to know how Arkane managed to make

such a complex area feel even
remotely understandable for players.

DANA: A rule of thumb there is never have
more than three ways in and out of a room.

But that's excluding special ways.

But the other thing we did with the layout,
as far as like keeping it approachable, is

the building is divided very cleanly into
four sections

(five sections if you count the
assessment chamber area),

and each of those areas have
very strong thresholds disconnecting them.

So you know when you're moving from one zone
to the next, so now you can kind of, like,

flush your RAM.

We actually we call that the door effect:
every time the player goes through a door

you can let them forget about what was behind
them and let them process what's in front

of them.

MARK: So this is Jindosh's bedroom, how was
this built?

DANA: It was built around this idea of 'it's
three rooms, there's a rotating part in the

centre, each room has two configurations'.

So you wind up with this very complex space
of multi-usage rooms.

For example, there was going to be the bedroom
and then he can roll out of bed, pull the

lever, wait three seconds, turn around, and
his bathtub would be right there.

That was like the seed that grew into this.

That was my starting point.

What are the whims of this person and what
would he find comfortable or comforting?

This room is also where we we started to have
fun with hidden rooms.

For the most part the mechanisms were either
what's happening in the space and what's behind

the scenes. But in this case we started to
have little hidden closets.

So there's two hidden chambers here that are
really tricky to get - you have to be really

paying attention to how everything is moving.

MARK: This mechanism in the lab is just crazy.

Why was it so important to make everything
work so realistically when a lot of players

may never even notice it?

DANA: Even if a player isn't consciously aware
of everything that's happening it all soaks in.

I feel like it all like feeds little by little
the overall feeling.

And also we, just, were really excited and
really passionate about it.

So, like, the whole team, the whole studio
is working on Dishonored 2 - but inside that

there's two like almost indie teams.

One of them is working on Crack in the Slab
and then there was team Clockwork Mansion.

We constantly were just taking that little
extra step to make sure that everything was just right.

MARK: I feel like the non-lethal solution
for dealing with Jindosh is pretty dark!

DANA: That came from creative direction.

The request was the solution to Jindosh is
to use this electroshock treatment to make

him no longer able to invent things.

I wanted a third way.

I really wanted you to be able to just leave
with Sokolov and leave Jindosh alone.

I felt like that was a choice that made sense
for the players motivation

and even Emily's motivation.

Like, you're not deciding to not engage with
the content - the content is in front of you

and you're making the choice to not do the
thing.

That's as much of a choice as doing the thing.

But the reason why we couldn't do the third
option of leaving him alone was every time

you have a decision like that, there's budgets
everywhere.

So in this case it was a voice acting budget:
all of the different outcomes have to be supported

later on in the game and as soon as we then
had to branch into three the the cost of recording

for each of those different outcomes… like
between The Outsider commenting on what you've

done or recordings at the Duke's palace of
Jindosh's fate… it was decided that, no we

have to stick to two. You either kill him or
you use the electroshock.

MARK: Would you have minded that players would
completely skip a lot of content?

DANA: This is the game where you can skip
an entire level if you do a puzzle so I would

say we're very firmly in the camp of let the
player find their own way through the map.

And if that means missing half the content
then that's how they chose to engage with

the content.

MARK, NARRATION: And so there we have it.

The Clockwork Mansion was a simple idea, that
truly came to life through careful planning,

clever prototypes, and endless iterations.

There were many roadblocks along the way - like
limited budgets and technical constraints.

Rotating walls, for example, were not going
to play nicely with AI pathfinding.

But clever workarounds, precision cutting,
and the hard work of a huge team of collaborators

meant the level never felt compromised - or
anything less than one of the most memorable

stages from the last few years.

My thanks to Dana and David for their time
and transparency.

A lightly edited version of our entire 2 hour

Zoom call is available to everyone who supports
GMTK over on Patreon.

And speaking of supporting the show - if you
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Stick around afterwards for an indie game
recommendation.

My indie game recommendation this time is
I Am Dead - an adorable afterlife adventure

about phasing through objects to find treasured
items and memories.

It's a lightweight, noodley puzzle game with
a winning art style, a heartfelt storyline,

and a unique mechanic that eagerly encourages
poking and prodding at everything you see.

I Am Dead is out now on Switch and Steam.